Speaking at a news conference with Mayor Frank Jackson by her side, she urged Cleveland and Ohio residents to sign up for health coverage by the March 31 deadline.

Her sales pitch was a familiar one: Go to the web site ("Healthcare.gov is working very smoothly," she said), call 800-318-2596 toll-free, or find a local agency to assist with the process by calling 211 for United Way's referral service.

As part of the effort to educate people who don't know that they're eligible for the new plans - and to prod people who haven't completed their sign-up process or who aren't thinking at all about getting coverage - Sebelius has been traveling across the country to talk up the Affordable Care Act and insurance through the health exchange. Earlier in the day she stopped in Kansas City, Missouri.

"We want to make sure between now and the end of March, people know what's available," Sebelius said, emphasizing that coverage will begin as early as March 1 for those who sign up by Feb. 15.

Sebelius came armed with lots of statistics:

* Fourteen percent of Ohioans - about 1.4 million people - are uninsured and eligible for new coverage. Around 238,000 Cleveland residents are included in that number.

* More than 40,000 Ohioans selected health insurance through the exchange through the end of December; 81 percent of them received financial assistance.

* A family of four in Cleveland, earning $50,000 a year, can get coverage for the entire family for as little as $94 a
month. A 27-year-old making $25,000 a year can get coverage for under $100 a
month.

A less-than-smooth roll-out of the web site on Oct. 1 prompted criticism by Republicans who had long derided the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Even before the problems with healthcare.gov, opponents had been vocal against Medicaid expansion, and against what they said was a law that provided consumers with fewer insurance choices that would cost more money.

"It's never been easier to find affordable health coverage," Sebelius said Monday. "Forty-five qualified health plans are selling insurance here in the Cleveland area. That's a lot of choice."

As of mid-January, 3 million people - one-quarter of whom are under age 35 - had signed up for new health insurance through the state and federal exchanges, a "huge surge" since the end of November, Sebelius said. And millions more have visited the web site but have not yet picked a plan, she said.

An HHS spokesman could not provide a specific number to a question about how many of the 3 million who had signed up were previously insured under a different plan.

“We are in the middle of a sustained six-month open enrollment period and we have seen a strong interest in the product overall across the range of demographics so far," the spokesman said in an email.

To underscore the availability of assistance, Sebelius introduced Rachel Degolia who, since last fall, has been working as an enrollment navigator with the Cuyahoga Health Access Partnership.

"In Cleveland, people live around the corner from some of the best
health care institutions in the world, but too many have not been able
to get in the door," Degolia said. "Getting health insurance is
still more complicated than any of us would like, but for the first
time, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, there's help."

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